16 traditional festivals and customs in China
1, Spring Festival
Customs: Chinese New Year has a long history, and some relatively fixed customs have been formed in the process of inheritance and development, many of which have been passed down to this day, such as holding new year's goods, sweeping dust, posting New Year greetings, celebrating New Year's Eve, celebrating the New Year's Eve, dancing dragons and lions, worshipping gods and ancestors, lighting firecrackers, setting off fireworks, worshiping gods, punting boats, praying, temple fairs, swimming and so on.
2. Lantern Festival
Custom: It is also called "Lantern Festival" because of the custom of hanging lanterns and watching lanterns on the Lantern Festival. Lantern Festival mainly includes a series of traditional folk activities, such as watching lanterns, eating glutinous rice balls, solve riddles on the lanterns and setting off fireworks. In addition, folk performances such as playing dragon lanterns, playing lions, walking on stilts, rowing dry boats, dancing yangko and playing Taiping drums have been added in many places.
3. Tomb-Sweeping Day
Customs: First, respect the ancestors, and pursue the future with caution; The second is outing and getting close to nature. Qingming is an important time for the integration of solar terms and festivals in traditional society. Solar terms are "weather" and pure natural time, and festivals are "people's time", which fully embodies people's natural view of "harmony between man and nature". The culture of Qingming etiquette and custom fully embodies the humanistic spirit of the Chinese nation of respecting ancestors and cautiously pursuing the future.
4. Dragon Boat Festival
Custom: Eating zongzi is a traditional folk custom in China. Zongzi, also known as "Jiao Shu", "Zongban" and "Zongzi", has a long history and various patterns.
5. Chinese Valentine's Day
Custom: Valentine's Day in China is the earliest love festival in the world. It is a traditional folk custom in China to sit and watch the morning glory and the weaver girl, visit friends in the boudoir, worship the weaver girl, seek marriage, learn needlework and pray for good luck. In ancient times, countless sentient men and women in the world prayed for a happy marriage with the stars on this night.
6. Mid-Autumn Festival
Custom: Mid-Autumn Festival night, full moon in Gui Xiang. In the old customs, people regard it as a symbol of reunion. People will prepare all kinds of fruits and cooked food, especially moon cakes, and enjoy the moon in the yard while eating. Some places also enjoy osmanthus, drink osmanthus wine, light lanterns, solve riddles on the lanterns, burn towers and play with rabbits.
7. Double Ninth Festival
Customs: In the Double Ninth Festival, there were ancient customs such as climbing high to pray for blessings, enjoying chrysanthemums in autumn, planting dogwood, offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors, and holding birthday banquets. So far, it has added the connotation of respecting the elderly, feasting on the day of Chongyang, and being grateful for respecting the elderly. Climbing mountains and enjoying autumn and giving thanks and respecting the elderly are two important themes of today's Double Ninth Festival.
8. Winter solstice festival
Custom: In many areas, there is a custom of offering sacrifices to the ancestors from the winter solstice, and some places celebrate this festival from the winter solstice. Every family provides genealogy, ancestor statues, memorial tablets, etc. In the upper hall of the home, an altar, incense burners and offerings are placed. In some places, while offering sacrifices to ancestors, they also offer sacrifices to gods, land gods and deities, so as to make the next year's weather favorable and the family prosperous.
9. New Year's Eve
Customs: New Year's Eve mainly includes some customs, such as pasting New Year's Red, New Year's Eve, lucky money, resigning the year, and keeping the year. On New Year's Eve, the whole family eats a "reunion dinner" together, which smells like a family reunion in the New Year. The folk custom of keeping New Year's Eve is mainly manifested in turning on the lights all night on New Year's Eve. On New Year's Eve, people should not only clean their homes and outside, but also put up door gods, Spring Festival couplets, New Year pictures and hanging door cages. People will put on new clothes with festive colors and patterns.
10, Laba Festival
Custom: The main custom of Laba Festival is "drinking Laba porridge" and soaking Laba vinegar. China has been drinking Laba porridge for 1000 years.
1 1, the dragon looks up
Custom: Due to the overlapping festivals, there are both the custom of raising the dragon's head and the custom of offering sacrifices to the society on February 2nd in some southern areas. For example, in Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi and other regions, February 2 is mainly devoted to offering sacrifices to the society, and most of the sacrifices in Duanyang are dragons.
12, Social Day Festival
Custom: Also known as Land Birthday, it is an ancient traditional festival in China. Social days are divided into spring society and autumn society. In ancient times, the festival of social day was determined according to the calendar of cadres and branches. Later, due to the change of calendar, festivals were decided by the lunar calendar. In ancient times, the land god and the place where the land god was sacrificed were called "clubs". According to the folk custom of our country, farmers should pray or reward the land god in every season of sowing or harvesting.
13, Shangsi Festival
Custom: commonly known as March 3, it is a traditional festival of Han nationality. Before the Han dynasty, it was designated as the fourth day of March, and later as the third day of March in the summer calendar. Shangsi Festival has a long history. In ancient times, Shangsi Festival has become a large-scale folk festival. In spring and quiet time, people go out of their homes and gather at the water's edge to hold ceremonies to clear up the ominous.
14, Cold Food Festival
Custom: The custom of easy fire existed in the pre-Qin period. No fire is allowed in the Cold Food Festival, only cold food can be eaten. The Cold Food Festival consists of two parts, one is the official ceremony of changing fire, and the other is the prohibition of cold food among the people.
15, Mid-Autumn Festival
Customs: Folk customs call July 30th, July14th and ancestor worship day. July is auspicious month and filial month, and July 30 is a festival for people to celebrate the harvest and repay the earth in early autumn. Some crops are ripe, so people should worship their ancestors according to the law and report Qiu Cheng to them with new rice and other sacrifices. This festival is a traditional cultural festival to remember the ancestors, and its cultural core is to respect the ancestors and do filial piety.
16, Cold Clothes Festival
Custom: The first day of the 10th lunar month, also known as "October Dynasty", is popular in northern China. Many northerners will offer sacrifices on this day to commemorate their deceased relatives, which is called sending cold clothes. At the same time, this day also marks the arrival of severe winter, so it is also a day to send warm clothes to parents, lovers and others who care about it.